Kid Arrested for Building a Clock

 

Most of us in the electronics business would recognize the above as a “project board”. You can buy these at the few still existing Radio Shacks or online and add electronic components to them to make a radio, a clock, or most anything you want confined to the capability of he device type…Including a Bomb timer.

What makes this a school project instead of a bomb, is the absence of something which goes “boom” like C4 or Semtex, which is pretty hard to come by by domestic or international terrorists inside the US…and virtually impossible to obtain as a High School kid. Which is a big part of the reason Timothy McVeigh used a fertilizer-oil (AMFO) bomb to blow up the Murrah Center, and the 9/11 terrorists…Used airplanes. The second reason this is a school project, is some of the little pieces on that green board are traceable to whomever purchased them.

Why someone should confuse the two things – a bomb and a kids electronic project, is an issue involving stereotypes and racism. Obviously this High School doesn’t offer any advanced college prep classes in Chemistry.

Muslim teen arrested after Texas teachers believe homemade clock is a bomb

A Dallas-area teen with a knack for tinkering built a homemade clock for his engineering teachers. Ahmed Mohamed never expected the reaction he’d receive for his invention. The 14-year-old Irving ISD student was arrested.

Despite repeated explanations that the device is a clock and no proof of explosives, police could charge Mohamed “with making a hoax bomb,” the Dallas Morning News reported.

The event has caught the attention of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and  ignited outrage on social media. A hashtag #IStandWithAhmed has began trending early Wednesday morning.

“I think this wouldn’t even be a question if his name wasn’t Ahmed Mohamed,” said Alia Salem, executive director of CAIR’s North Texas chapter, according to ABC affiliate WFAA. “He is an excited kid who is very bright and wants to share it with his teachers.”

A photo circulating on Twitter — of a slight student in a NASA T-shirt in handcuffs — appears to show the end of the incident that occurred Monday. The Dallas Morning News described Mohamed as a skilled engineer who can build “his own radios and repair his own go-kart.”

The freshman at MacArthur High School received a three day suspension. Police are investigating the case even though they acknowledge that the student had not made any references to a bomb. From the Morning News:

“We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” [Police spokesman James] McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”

Well, Ahmed, I have some sympathy for you borne out of personal experience. I built some rather powerful rockets back in my day, scrounging parts from junkyards and Edmund Scientific on my small allowance budget. Capable of launching well over 10,000 ft. Got arrested for trying to shoot down an airplane by a local rooter-tooter cop, because I launched my rocket 20 miles from an airport. Local reporter came to my defense and threatened a critical article…

Hope the Internet world hearing about your case has a positive result!

 

 

Japanese Americans Push Back Against Republican Jim Crow

One of the ugly episodes in our history was the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII. America operated concentration camps, where Japanse-American citizens, guilty of nothing but their Japanese ancestry were imprisoned for the duration of WWII. Whole familes were carted off to be locked away…

So it is no surprise Japanese would be sensitive to the virulent calls to racism by Tea Bagged Republicans – this time against another group, Muslims. They have seen this slide show before…

Japanese Americans decry Rep. King’s Muslim hearings as ‘sinister’

During the chaotic days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Basim Elkarra was passing by an Islamic school in Sacramento when he did a double-take: The windows were covered with thousands of origami paper cranes – peace symbols that had been folded and donated by Japanese Americans.

Amid the anger and suspicions being aimed at Muslims at that time, the show of support “was a powerful symbol that no one will ever forget,” said Elkarra, a Muslim American community leader in California.

It was also the beginning of an unlikely bond between the two groups that has intensified as House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.)prepares to launch a series of controversial hearings Thursday on radical Islam in the United States.

Spurred by memories of the World War II-era roundup and internment of 110,000 of their own people, Japanese Americans, especially on the West Coast, have been among the most vocal and passionate supporters of embattled Muslims. They’ve rallied public support against hate crimes at mosques, signed on to legal briefs opposing the indefinite detention of Muslims by the government, organized cross-cultural trips to the Manzanar internment camp memorial in California and held “Bridging Communities” workshops in Islamic schools and on college campuses.

 

Mega Disaster in Pakistan – Why No One Cares…

What would happen if there were a mega-disaster…

And no one came to help?

Three major reasons Aid to Pakistan is limited:

1. The Money Well is tapped out. The World economic crisis has limited the ability of nations, including the United States, to respond.
2. Pakistan was responsible for the distribution o Nuclear Weapons making technology to other Islamic countries, and terrorist organizations, They have so far, refused to punish those responsible.
3. Islamofascism is alive and well in Pakistan, with the Taliban and Al Quaeda both having bases in the country and successfully hiding.  Some of that ability is based on support by a portion of the Pakistani people. The country could very easily become another Islamofascist state under Islamic Fundamentalist control.

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WHY ISN’T THE WORLD RUSHING TO RESCUE PAKISTAN?, posted with vodpod